I’m very skeptical about a group of people who want to bring in limits in everything to benefit themselves while lowering salaries and putting limits on front-loading contracts and limiting their length which they will then try to bypass or bend to their own favour when it comes to signing big name free agents.

Surely Buttman knew those 76,000 pages of data would require stringent checking and analysis? Not to mention the re-modelling work to demonstrate to their membership the impact of any changes to them?

From the Dan Cleary story in USA Today:
“The one thing for us is, we’re waiting on audits from each team so we can go over the numbers,” Cleary said Tuesday. “They started to come in last night, and once we get those in — that’s the biggest thing so far. We can’t really look at revenue sharing till then.”

By revenue sharing, are they talking about the percentage that the players get or team sharing revenues with each other. I think they’re talking about the owner’s proposal to reduce the players’ share to 46%, but I’m not sure.

The audits are important because even thought the owners gave them 76000 pages of numbers, the audits tell you whether you can rely on those numbers to be a truthful depiction of their income.

I dont know the specific categories but the owners were looking to change what was and wasnt classed as hockey-related revenue also, not just to reduce the %age based on the original calculations for the CBA.

Why the 2 sides cant find an independent auditor to do this i dont know?

No, CCC, they are talking about the revenue sharing between the teams. Apparently the NHL proposed a new, more streamlined revenue sharing. As of now, the NHL has the worst RS among all major sports. It is currently impossible to predict for any team when, and if they will get money from RS. The number at which the team gets help is calculated in an awkward way (somewhere between mid-cap and salary floor, if their revenue is insufficient). And some of the teams can never get help from RS no matter how little money they generate (NY Islanders is one example)

Guys, don’t fight over me. I won’t be playing this year but I will help all of the Rangers players dress for their photo shoots and will be doing fashion tip spots on MSG for all of the fans. LGR!…and High Fashion.

Carp, out of curiosity, what makes you *so* very positive there will be a delayed season, or no season altogether? There’s no chance they resolve it, at all? The talks will go that poorly that you’re assured of it?

M Buzzi, no, I’m not positive … but I’ve been through a few of these, and I’m quite certain that the players didn’t hire Don Fehr because of his sense of humor. I believe they will begin negotiating at polar ends of the spectrum, and it will take a long while to get to the middle. Plus these things never get resolved before some sort of deadline is reached or passed. The first is Sept. 15. Then the start of camp. The start of preseason. The postponing of the first regular-season games, and so on.

The players are in the driver’s seat, and they know it. A lockout hurts the owners and league more than the players. The players still get paid. The NHL already has a comparatively small fanbase, another lockout would be miserable for the NHL and the owners.

Oy vey. I was just asking Carp because he’s always busy with work, I wont get much opportunity to see him, and I had a good time with him outside of MSG, and I figure he’d probably want to see baby ilb, given that ilb is tied with Sally as best RR’er! :)

Tiki, players are NOT in the driver’s seat. They don’t get paid during a lockout. Only a select few who had those big bonuses put into their UFA contracts will get any money at all. That’s why the players always fold.

*Evander Kane* update from Gary Lawless: he’s stalling for some reason. “GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has put a six-year contract worth close to $29 million on the table and Kane’s people have had it sitting in a desk drawer for a number of weeks now. [Winnipeg Free Press]

(Ooh White Lines) Vision dreams of passion
(Blowin’ through my mind) and all the while I think of you
(High price) a very strange reaction
(For us to unwind) the more I see, the more I do
(Something like a phenomenon) Baby!
(Tellin your body to come along, but white lines blow away)
(Blow! Rock it! Blow!)

Ticket to ride, white line highway
Tell all your friends, they can go my way
Pay your toll, sell your soul
Pound for pound costs more than gold
The longer you stay, the more you pay
My white lines go a long way
Either up your nose or through your vein
With nothin to gain except killin’ your brain

A million magic crystals, painted pure and white
A multi-million dollars almost overnight
Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt
And if you get hooked, baby, it’s nobody else’s fault, so don’t do it!

(Don’t you get too high) don’t you get too high baby!
(Turns you on) you really turn me on and on
(‘Cause you gotta come down) my temperature is risin’
(When the thrill is gone) no, I don’t want you to go

A street kid gets arrested, gonna do some time
He got out three years from now just to commit more crime
A businessman is caught with 24 kilos
He’s out on bail and out of jail
And that’s the way it goes
Raah!

(White Lines) Vision dreams of passion
(Blowin’ through my mind) and all the while I think of you
(High price) a very strange reaction
(For us to unwind) the more I see, the more I do
(Something like a phenomenon) Baby!
(Tellin your body to come along, but white lines blow away)

Little Jack Horner sitting on the corner
With no shoes and clothes
This aint funny, but he took his money
And sniffed it up his nose

Got the round in gents and ladies and dinner daters. 43-40 for an 83! Ready for Friday’s father in law, father, me and this guy named Eddie who isn’t e3 barnburner. Old guys hit off tge whites, we hit off the blues. No
Playing up in the rough and nO mulligans!

Fehr said that September 15th wasn’t a hard date, it was just a goal. It could well go on passed that. A topic brought up not too long ago was extending the current CBA a year to further discuss the issues, but I doubt that happens.

In the book “Behind The Moves,” Jason Farris spoke with NHL General Managers past and present about how they conduct business and to tell stories about their lives in hockey.

Here, Glen Sather talks about what it is like to be GM of the Ranges:

“I thought the challenge [coming to the Rangers] was going to be terrific, as it has been. I wouldn’t say that it has been even close to successful; it has been competitive but it takes a long time to change things. Guys get into a position and it takes you three or four or five years just to clean out the bad contracts and change the environment….Owners don’t want to hear it. But do they want reality or bull(carcillo)? When I went to New York, [Dave] Checketts told me that we have to have stars in New York or we are not going to sell tickets. Bottom line is that every team wants to sell every ticket and create as much revenue as possible…Only one team is going to win. Does every owner in the league know that? Do they honestly think they have a legitimate shot at winning? We bull(carcillo) each other and we tell our players that our goal is to win the Stanley Cup. Well, that is the goal, but do you really believe it?”

DiPi is off the IR? The NYR fans should feel better now. Because if the revenue sharing goes Bettman’s way they won’t have to partially pay for a player who doesn’t play hockey. Paying for a part of Alexei Yashin’s salary through 2015 is a totally different story.

Oh, I forgot… besides to conclude the proceedings and to make sure that all the boneheads are safe and tucked in, I will also analyze the “boys in the band”, you know who you are, blogmama, manny, tiki, fran, CCCR, e3, ilb2001, NYR_FAN, just a few examples. I am thinking about a brunch of your choice and my expense, so I can really put some faces and characters behind these effusions a little better. Watdya think?

Newbear- Funny, I don’t have an urge to put your face behind your character. I think I’ll take a rain check on that brunch, thanks. Until, perhaps, you realize that if your only way to proof your own worth is to “analyze” and denigrate people, there is a professional help for that. And until you say a single word about hockey. I’m yet to be convinced you realize it’s a hockey blog.

I know that possibly you and some others think than I’m a Johnny One Note, when I keep bringing up
Doan, and you probably have good cause, but I cannot help it when I stop to think of the
Ranger possibilities, and this very ordinary player keeps surfacing with the implication that he is the one. Well, I’ve watched him quite closely for a while and he just doesn’t impress me as a player who can come in and play Ranger type hockey, game after game. Sure I may be jumping at shadows, but it’s there and it does irritate me to a degree, but not enough now to continue my crusade. If he comes he comes, and if Rangers can grow on him like it does for the true believers, then I’ll eat the crow. But I have to see it happen.